Culture Shock
by Conna Stevenson
Summary: Innocent hazing and sneezes, harmless human traditions turned inside-out; their differences work in ways that leave everyone wondering just who's messing with who. Sam and Bumblebee wouldn't change a thing, though. Now a few one-shots.
1. Bless You

_Okay, I have no idea where this came from. It's crack, has nothing to do with The Long Road Home in any way, and I had fun writing something with this level of pointlessness. Enjoy._

* * *

If asked about it later, Bumblebee would deny he ever had a part in it.

In truth, he had started the whole thing.

Mirage was newly arrived to Earth, and after Ratchet had given him a thorough diagnostic, Mirage was released into the Nevada night to secure an alternate mode under cover of darkness. Sam and Bumblebee happened to arrive at the base just as Mirage was leaving the medbay, and the spy was naturally curious, getting his first look at their new home's native sentients. It was a very ordinary introduction until Sam sneezed.

Bumblebee, from the very first time he'd witnessed this phenomenon, thought it was one of the funniest things he had ever seen. A human sneezing could go from grave and somber to spastic and ludicrous in nanoseconds-- the face would contort, the teeth bared, eyes clamped tightly shut, sometimes the entire body jerking into a parody of itself for one instant before returning to normal. It was really something to watch.

And every human was very peculiar about their individual sneeze. Sam's came in pairs, without fail, and before there would be a long anticipatory yawn-like intake of breath, during which the boy would tense, hunch his shoulders, and splay his hands as if to flail for support. Then the sneezes would explode out of him in rapid-fire succession, flinging his upper body forward. And to say nothing of the _sounds_ that came out of him during the whole display--!

Mikaela's sneezes were a great deal less theatrical; she would sniff uncomfortably for a few moments before turning her head aside, sometimes covering her face as she did so if she had a tissue at hand. Glen, through some genetic quirk, would sneeze when exposed to sudden bright light, a discovery that led to the poor human being repeatedly ambushed at night by Sideswipe's (and occasionally, Cliffjumper's) high-beams. Maggie's sneezes were high-pitched, quiet squeaks. Lennox, by contrast, bellowed like a beast when he sneezed and could be heard through walls.

The general consensus among the Autobots was that the sneeze was highly amusing, though most of them, out of politeness to their human allies, did not show their feelings outright. Bumblebee once remarked to Sam (after a particularly satisfying double-achoo) that sneezing was an odd sight, given that a Cybertronian's body had more efficient, less noisy ways to deal with foreign elements. Sam had merely shrugged, wiping his nose on a spare napkin hastily plucked from a nearby Burger King bag.

"Check for brains," the boy had said, and grinned up at his guardian. "When I was little, some kid at school convinced me that if I sneezed three times in a row, my head would explode. I think I believed that for longer than I believed in Santa Claus."

"Check for _brains?_"

"Kind of an in-family joke, I guess. Instead of 'bless you' it's 'check for brains' in case you sneezed so hard they might have come out."

"That's..."

"... my dad's sense of humor. You don't want to know what he says for burping."

So when Sam let out his twin sneezes there in front of Mirage, Bumblebee thought nothing of casually reminding his charge to, well, check for brains. Poor Mirage just stood there for a moment, looking uncertainly between Bumblebee and Sam, unsure whether to be amused at the sneezing or alarmed at the implication of brain matter loss.

"It's called sneezing," Bumblebee explained, transmitting some basic data. "It's a perfectly natural function to clear the respiratory intakes."

And then, he got creative.

"But there's a danger of explosive cranial inversion, you see, if there are too many sternutations in quick succession. Which is why it's traditional to advise a human to make sure there aren't any preliminary leaks."

The shocked look on Mirage's faceplates was certainly priceless, but the spy was too canny to buy Bumblebee's mischief for very long. One look at the internet was all it took, really. That, and Sam's fit of paralyzing laughter.

"How very droll, Bumblebee," Mirage chided in good enough humor. "Harass the newcomer. If you'll excuse me, I must locate a suitable alternate mode. Sam Witwicky, my deepest apologies for your having fallen in with such a shameless rascal."

It wasn't until the next day that Bumblebee realized what he'd started.

"Oh yes, it's true," he overheard Mirage saying to Trailbreaker and Wheeljack, who had likewise recently arrived. "I witnessed such a tragedy in town, just after I scanned the vehicle. Quite gruesome, quite. The poor thing didn't check for brains."

And as if it had been rehearsed, Sergeant Epps walked by the gathering of newcomer 'bots, and sneezed. The resulting two-robot flinch of horror startled the oblivious human, who quickly became unnerved having Trailbreaker and Wheeljack stare in morbid dread, waiting for his head to explode.

"_Check for brains!_" Trailbreaker desperately implored, and suddenly Epps found a reason to be very, very far away.

"Now who's shameless?" Bumblebee accused laughingly, after letting the two others in on the joke.

Word got around quick, though, quick enough for Prowl to issue a stern base-wide no-exceptions ban on the phrase "check for brains" (in any language) shortly before a visit by Secretary Keller. And things were fairly calm until the arrival of four more Autobots.

Wheeljack managed to convince Springer that the sneeze was a human mating call. Ironhide disabused him of that notion before it got too far, fortunately.

Sideswipe enlisted Glen in the hazing of the notoriously high-strung Red Alert, offhandedly mentioning that a human who sneezed more than twice in one day was actually speaking in code to other sneezing humans, and any sneezing human was a part of a global secret society called G.E.S.U.N.D.H.E.I.T. The pair even went so far as to create a website claiming to expose the conspiracy (all in 14-point blood-red Comic Sans, for some reason) in hysterical alarmist tones, and then manipulated Google rankings so that it would be the top result for an internet search for the topic of sneezing when the hapless Red Alert tried to verify the claim.

Sideswipe's internet access was summarily blocked, until such a time as Ratchet felt he had learned his lesson.

The hazing died down, but soon after Sunstreaker took it in his processor to start ranking the humans' sneezes, and Bluestreak happily joined him. 1 being 'pitiful' and 10 being 'quiet, you'll wake Primus.' Sam consistently scored 8-9.7 for his, to his delight. Lennox was less than amused at being given enthusiastic and awestruck 11s. Mikaela soon grew annoyed with Sunstreaker tsk-tsking her "weak 3, 3.5 at best, can't you do better?" sneezes, but Bluestreak won her back by jokingly offering to help her improve her score by kicking up some dust.

Epps, who still wasn't in on the joke, couldn't figure out why robots were randomly yelling numbers at him.

As jokes do, however, it aged and petered out eventually, the normalcy of their strange, beautiful, unpredictable new home taking hold once more. And during one particularly dicey battle with a group of Decepticons, help arrived in the form of Kup and his group, having literally fallen out of the sky just in time. Thus bolstered, the Autobots made short work of the enemy, the more cowardly ones scattering like turbomice.

"Kup, old friend," Optimus greeted warmly, once all cannons had cooled. "It is very good to see you again. Welcome to Earth."

"Weird planet," the old robot commented. "Never seen so much blue in one place before. Not since Blurr got himself blasted all over the landscape of Omicron Persei 8, anyway--"

"Hey, Iresemblethatremark!"

Speechmaking and explanations followed, bringing the new arrivals up to speed for Earth. Introductions were made to the military humans already present, Lennox's team and the handful of F-22 pilots who had also helped. Sam and Mikaela arrived soon, having hung back out of the danger zone.

It was all very routine until Sam sneezed...


	2. Meet April

_And here is another pointless bit of crack that isn't connected to TLRH. I'd like to make clear that this is all the fault of Dreaming of Everything here on ffn. In this, Bumblebee proves he understands a certain human holiday only too well.  
_

* * *

There was a tiny voice in the back of Sam's head that told him he should be suspicious. This tiny voice was quickly cornered, dragged into a bathroom and given a swirlie and a wedgie by the other head-voices, because really-- Bumblebee was his guardian and one of his best friends.

Still, it was weird. But, hey, Bumblebee was a giant alien robot who probably had all kinds of different and unfathomable thoughts and curiosities. He probably thought some of the things humans did were pretty damn weird too, so it had to work out.

Which was how he wound up at a drive-in with not one but _two_ hot chicks for a Valentine's Day double feature. Okay, one was a very convincing hologram, courtesy Bumblebee's newly-repaired projector. Sam reclined on the Camaro's warm hood, a bucket of greasy popcorn wedged between himself and Mikaela on the right, and a disturbingly appealing blonde draped against his left side. He couldn't feel a thing from "her", of course. It was just light and some kind of space-robot hoodoo that, despite being explained in the smallest possible words, he still didn't understand.

"You don't think it's... I dunno..." Sam muttered to Mikaela as they were procuring snacks between flicks. He gestured with a bag of M&Ms back across the sea of parked cars, towards where Bumblebee and his curvaceous avatar waited. "...weird?"

"Weird how?" Mikaela shrugged, spearing her drink's lid with a straw. "It's just a way for him to interact with us without being a talking car."

"_Him_, that's just it. Why a girl in a baby tee and short-shorts?"

"Why not?" Mikaela tossed her hair and rolled her eyes in that time-honored 'my boyfriend is being lovably idiotic' manner and towed him back toward their spot. "Ratchet explained this already. They don't have gender so it really doesn't matter."

"You are so much hotter than she is, though," he hastily assured her, just in case this was a test. "You know, I wasn't _looking_ or anything but--"

"You're adorable, Sam, but maybe you should stop talking."

So Sam shut up and managed to get through the forgettable rom-com Hugh Grant affair, made enjoyable by snarky commentary and the occasional question for clarification from the hologram regarding the ridiculous human courtship maneuvers onscreen. And when Trent DeMarco sauntered by and saw him on the hood of a _smoking hot car_ with _two hot chicks_, well, Sam could die with a smile on his face now.

After that, Bumblebee rarely used the blonde-chick hologram. It would show up maybe once every couple weeks, when the disguised car had need of a driver and neither Sam nor Mikaela were available, or Sam needed to hold a conversation with Bumblebee in public without looking like a mental case. It was often enough, however, for Miles to spot the blonde apparition one day and later ask Sam if that meant Mikaela was available now.

Sam just did his best to not look to hard at "her" whenever Bumblebee used the projector. Non-gendered or whatever, Sam just couldn't think of his friend as a she, let alone an it. But still-- alien robots. Weird alien robot cultural differences. Sam could be tolerant and accepting for the sake of interspecies cooperation.

The hologram was the furthest from his mind on the early April day the odd transmission came in. Epps was on hand to help Maggie and Glen with the task of deciphering it, both to see if it was Autobot or Decepticon or other, and to test out the human-appropriate interface to the complex systems of Teletraan-1. Sam, and Captain Lennox who was unlucky enough to be present at the time, were reduced to coffee and smoothie gophers while the geek contingent and Ratchet fought with encryptions and crystals and circuit boards. Mikaela was halfway across the state visiting with her dad, so Sam couldn't even excuse himself on the pretense (yes, we'll call it pretense) of making out with her in one of the guest quarters on base.

"Reverse the polarity," Lennox blandly suggested to the room at large. "I saw them do it on Stargate last night."

Sam suddenly found latte in his sinus cavity, the geeks gave him a Look, while Ratchet simply appeared to be contemplating just how much he could get away with without violating their we-do-not-harm-humans rule.

"Doesn't quite work that way, Captain," purred a vaguely familiar voice just behind Sam's left shoulder. "And besides, Stargate's just not as much fun in reruns."

A quick glance told Sam that Bumblebee's blonde bombshell was back in action, and a flash of yellow from outside the control room doors gave away the actual robot's location. "Bee, come on, you don't have to use that thing in here," he pleaded, hiding an eyeroll by taking another sip from his Starbucks.

"Oh, I dunno, Sam, she's kinda easy on the..." Lennox petered off, peering at the figure over Sam's shoulder, and slowly grinned, turned away, and ambled over to lean against the console Epps was working on. "Eh-_hrrm_. Right."

Epps glanced up and suddenly looked as if he was trying very hard to swallow his own face in an effort not to laugh. Glen and Maggie looked up as well, the former's eyes goggling. Sam raised an eyebrow.

"So." Maggie's tone was sweetness itself. "When's the blessed event?"

"What--"

The lightbulb finally turned on. Sam whirled to confront the holographic image and abruptly realized that he had been so busy keeping his eyes above "her" collarbones that he had neglected to pay attention to what was happening to "her" waistline.

Bumblebee's young, hot, blonde and busty hologram gave every indication of being about nine months pregnant. Its face dimpled cutely at him before the whole image dissolved in a twinkling of light.

Bumblebee's ancient, metal, yellow and black robot self leaned around the door frame. "April Fool's."

"--_BUMBLEBEE!_"


	3. Best Friend

_I have two chihuahuas. Naturally I'm a bit biased. Naturally it would follow that I am a Mojo fan. Other than that I have no explanation for the ficlet that follows. Little dogs rock. That is all._

_

* * *

_

A spray of cool water pattered gently over Bumblebee's sun-warmed hood, slowly moving in a line back towards his windshield, then across his roof. It was one of his few guilty pleasures-- stealthily moving just close enough to the lawn whenever Mr. Witwicky set the sprinkler out. Actual rain was better, but this was still nice.

Bumblebee sank low on his tires, half-powered down, processor speed at the lowest setting it could go without actually going into recharge. Ages of living in a war had taught him that this pleasant lull could end at any moment; he was going to make it last.

He noted and initially ignored the rattle of the dog door flapping open. Mojo was a tiny warm blip on Bumblebee's sensors, likely coming outside to deposit some waste in the bushes in the back corner of the yard as the little creature often did. Bumblebee let his thoughts wander a bit, idly watching Mojo patrol the fence with great sense of purpose before finally deciding that _this_ spot, this bit of grass, was _definitely_ the place to pee, but first the location had to be vetted through a painstaking process of sniffing, pacing, pawing at the ground and looking around.

When Bumblebee had first observed dogs, years ago after his arrival on Earth, they were at first only curiosities to be examined when times weren't so desperate. His first clue to the animals' significance came when he'd accidentally struck one, late one winter night in Michigan a few months after his landing.

Rain was nice, but snow was only good if it was already on the ground-- something about the way the falling ice crystals reflected and broke up scanner readings-- Bumblebee quickly figured out he didn't much care for blizzards, especially since the clue he'd been chasing up there had been nothing. And then--

_Whump_. A shrill yip of pain. Bumblebee skidded to a halt on the icy road, horrified that he might have hurt a human... but as he transformed, hidden by the darkness and driving snow, he saw the dark, four-legged figure lying unmoving on the pavement. Relieved that he hadn't harmed a sentient, Bumblebee was nonetheless regretful to have hurt the poor beast at all. It hadn't attacked him, wasn't an enemy.

As Bumblebee reached down to move the body off the road, the creature stirred, lifted its head and looked right at him. Its tail thumped weakly, and then the dog went limp.

The little metal tag on its collar read SUZIE, and there had been a microchip implanted just underneath its skin. Bumblebee had used the code within to carry the unfortunate animal back to its owners' home, noting with dismay the abundance of dog toys on the porch and a specially-made small door near the humans' entrance. He already knew most humans formed close-knit units called family. "Suzie" seemed well-fed; not abandoned or exiled, merely lost. In this weather, its chances of survival had been already slim. The thought did little to allay Bumblebee's guilt. This dog had been... cared for, was part of this family.

Over time, he'd gleaned bits and pieces of information on this mystifyingly intimate interrelationship between dog and human. Cybertron had had what might be loosely termed "wildlife": glitch-mice, turbofoxes, nano-gnats... products of stray energies leached from the Allspark. Sparkless, non-sapient, but nonetheless autonomous. Their involvement with the sparked Cybertronians ranged from scientific curiosity to annoyance, and as far as Bumblebee knew, nobody ever tried to make a pet out of a cybercat.

From _wolf_ long ago, humans had shaped myriad variations of _dog_ (a little frightening considering their limited understanding of genetics for the bulk of that time), and, watching Mojo take his constitutional about the Witwicky yard, Bumblebee had to wonder if the dogs hadn't done a little shaping of their own in return.

Mojo had the run of the entire house. He had numerous plush beds in various locations piled with warm fleece blankets. A premium dog food and clean water was in reach at all times, and the Witwickys made great show of occasionally "accidentally" dropping bits of cheese, popcorn, meat, anything really, on the kitchen floor to be eagerly snapped up by the lucky chihuahua. Mojo was not only allowed but encouraged to cozy up on any piece of furniture he could reach, especially if it was already occupied by a warm human lap. A seven-pound canine had the household figuratively wrapped around his dainty paw.

Sam would hold entire conversations with the dog, assuring Bumblebee that he knew full well Mojo wouldn't talk back. Even given that Mojo could recognize a surprising number of words and phrases, there was little point in discussing calculus homework with him. Ron was less chatty, but still would often exchange a line or two with the animal. Judy often dispensed with intelligible speech entirely, her voice climbing into near-ultrasonic squeaks of "_Oooosa Mojobug! Issa baby Mojobug! Oooooooosa baby boy issa sweet iddle puppy!_"

The first time Bumblebee heard her do that, he had the illogical thought that she was de-evolving somehow.

Mojo would soak these interactions up like a little furry sponge, engaging in antics and actions that were unmistakably calculated attempts to garner attention and interaction from his human family members. Undeniably, the creature's favorite form of attention was physical touch. Ear-scratching, belly-rubbing, long strokes of a human hand along his back. Living things on Earth were all so extensively tactile that this was nothing surprising.

What piqued Bumblebee's interest was the effect such affectionate contact had on the human giving it.

Mojo would wriggle up to Sam, flop on his side half-in Sam's lap, and Sam would obligingly lavish the dog with "scritches", and a curious thing would happen: Sam's heart rate and blood pressure would drop. Respiration would slow and deepen marginally. Any tension the boy had (and Sam could carry around quite a bit) would leave his muscles. Even the simple act of resting a hand on the animal had a noticeable effect, to Bumblebee's sensors. And according to some research on the phenomenon, it was not an isolated thing.

As wondrous as this near-symbiosis was, so far it seemed limited to organic beings. Mojo had yet to indicate much interest in the metal giants beyond the incident with Ironhide's foot. Bumblebee was, as far as the scout could tell, just a car and occasionally a huge moving hunk of metal to the dog. He surmised this was because he had no recognizable organic scent, or was too inhuman-seeming to the animal to make much of a connection. This disconnect didn't keep Mojo from attempting to destroy Bumblebee a few times before the little beast became accustomed to having a great mobile metal thing around every once in a while.

Mojo, it seemed, had no idea he was only ten inches tall. Bumblebee's toecap was properly terrified. The rest of Bumblebee was highly amused. After his feet were determined to be neither threat nor food, however, Bumblebee was back to being ignored.

A tug at his back right tire brought him out of his half-doze. Sam had come out to move the sprinkler, and Bumblebee had inadvertently wedged the hose underneath the tire. He scanned for Mojo's whereabouts, then on second thought a broader scan of the immediate area, and transformed.

"Oh, geez, sorry, Bee," Sam said, in the process of kinking the hose to breifly stem the flow of water. "Didn't mean to wake you up."

Bumblebee made a dismissive gesture. "It's all right. I wasn't in recharge." He looked down as Mojo approached his feet, tail up but not wagging. The dog gave one of his heel stabilizers a cursory sniff and trotted over to Sam almost without pause, evidently deciding Bumblebee's foot did not warrant attack and/or territory-marking.

Shielded from prying eyes by the trees and fencing lining the Witwicky property, Bumblebee sat down and idly picked a few pebbles out of his tire treads as he watched Mojo feint playfully at Sam's bare feet. Sam, busy trying to wrestle hose and sprinkler to the other side of the lawn merely sidestepped the dog until Mojo began nipping. An attention-getting tactic of last resort, one the Witwickys had tried to discourage, Mojo nevertheless didn't actually bite; it was a light touch of teeth with no pressure often accompanied by an impish lick.

"Mojo--!" Sam danced awkwardly to one side, balanced on one foot and used the other to gently bop the little dog on the head. Bumblebee watched, fascinated as always. It seemed _Operation: Get Sam To Play With Me_ was underway.

Sam set the sprinkler down, aiming it so that when he let go of the hose, the water sprayed right at Mojo. This of course set Mojo off like a little furry firecracker-- off the dog went, little legs a blur, ricocheting around the yard with mouth wide open, tongue lolling out, tail helicoptering. Sam cackled with glee, tilting the sprinkler again as Mojo quite deliberately veered back into range only to turn neatly on a paw to avoid the spray. Mojo then stopped precisely out of reach, turned, and lowered his forequarters to the ground, hind end still raised with tail wagging.

The play-bow; of all canine behaviors this one somehow delighted Bumblebee the most. It was, he determined, the clearest indication that dogs as a whole had been domesticated not simply because they were interesting or useful creatures to have around, not merely as pets, but as true companions. This invitation to play, to interact, to bond, a result of millennia of interspecies alliance.

Bumblebee filed it in the category of things that gave him hope for humans, for the Autobots' own alliance with them. Of all the sentient races known to Cybertronians, none but the people of Earth made _friends_ of their wildlife. On other worlds, animals fell into classes of beast-of-burden, food, or threat. A Tyroxian might value a strong _ngrix'kkl_ as a tool with which to pull heavy loads, but as a cherished member of its clan? The idea would have gotten you laughed off the planet.

Humans forged such bonds with the other creatures of this world so easily, and so deeply, that Bumblebee was unshakable about staying here. That his friendship with Sam would not be the exception, that the last remnants of the broken Cybertronian people would indeed find solace here, and they would not have to be alone.

Humming contented harmonies to himself, Bumblebee watched Sam and Mojo take turns chasing each other around the yard. Sam eventually tumbled to the grass and Mojo pounced, victorious, attacking Sam's face with exuberant licking.

"Ack--" Sam batted at the dog, trying unsuccessfully to shield his face from seven pounds of happy chihuahua. "Bee, help! Mad dog!"

Mojo was, of course, nothing of the sort; Sam could just sit up any time he wanted. Bumblebee made a show of shrugging. "You provoked him, Sam. Sorry, you're on your own."

"Some guardian! Mojo-- sic!" Sam did sit up, scooping the dog into his hands and aiming Mojo at Bumblebee like a weapon. "Get 'im! Deadly attack chihuahua, away!"

Bumblebee laughed. He shifted, putting a hand down on the ground to lean to one side just as Sam unleashed the deadly attack chihuahua. The movement must have caught the little dog's attention, for Mojo immediately trotted over to where the immense metal hand met the grass.

A sniff. That much was expected.

Mojo licked his thumb. And then the dog craned his neck back and looked right at Bumblebee, tiny black eyes locking onto his face. One front paw cocked up in curiosity. Bumblebee froze; the dog had never acknowledged him so directly. Perhaps this was just a prelude to another barking fit at the strange, unfathomable metal thing.

Tail a-wag, Mojo bowed.


End file.
